Empathy For Enemies
by saphirefox-irl
Summary: Skyfall fic, AU from after Severin dies. Bond's mini radio doesn't work. Remaining on the island, he discovers that both Silva and the situation he now finds himself in are a lot more complex than he had imagined.
1. Chapter 1

I really shouldn't be starting another story but I saw Skyfall and it's just... wow! It's eating my brain.

I though I'd share this fic I've been writting. There'll be at least one more chapter, which will have m/m themes.

**Warnings for this chapter: **torture, 'off-screen' violence, Silva (just in general)

If you want me to keep writting please review as it encourages me.

* * *

James Bond - 007 was struggling to remain conscious as he hung from his wrists in the centre of an empty room. He had been hanging for hours, the pain having long since passed agonizing to reach the level of excruciating. Silva's men had strung him up after his reinforcements had failed to materialize. His shoulders had dislocated a short while ago. He hadn't been able to keep from screaming when that happened. He was silent now though.

Outside the door, behind his back, he could hear raised voices but could not focus enough through the pain to make out what was being said. There was a gunshot. Bond tried to ready himself for whatever might be coming but it was getting increasingly difficult to draw enough air into his lungs. Suddenly strong arms were wrapped around his thighs, raising his body and relieving the awful pressure on his screaming joints. He gulped in oxygen as the man beneath him repositioned himself so that still supporting the secret agent's weight he could reach up to sever the rope from which he was suspended.

Silva - for who else could it be with that colour hair? - stumbled a little when the rope was cut and Bond dropped against him but he managed to lower the other man to the floor without jolting him. "There, there," he cooed, stroking the agent's face with bizarre tenderness. "I didn't know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Why?" James gasped as he caught his breath.

"My dear Mr. Bond..." Silva sighed, still with his left hand on the other man's face as his right held him in a seated position, "I may be quite happy to kill but one thing I cannot abide is torture."

"Seems-" He drew a long shuddering breath. "Seems strange."

"Not at all," Silva replied. "Would you like to know why I'm doing all of this, everything?"

Bond nodded, wincing at the pain the small movement brought. Yes he wanted to know, if only because it might help him to stop this maniac. Silva stared at him for a moment. "Come on," he said, pulling James to his feet, "over here." He guided him to a bench that ran alongside on of the walls. "Sit," he instructed before going back to fetch the knife. James drew back when the blade approached his chest. "Oh hush," Silva admonished as he gripped the collar of the spy's shirt and started to cut away the garment. He tossed it on the floor then carefully untied the ropes still binding Bond's wrists. Dark bruises already encircled them, while others were forming on his shoulders. Taking tight hold of James' right arm the blonde haired man twisted it out up and back, efficiently popping the joint back into place. It hurt like hell and 007 swore. "Now, now, it's worse the longer you leave it." Silva quickly repeated the maneuver with the other arm.

"Thanks," Bond said, only somewhat grudgingly. He was still in pain but a lot less than before.

Silva slipped of his suit jacket and draped it over the other agent's shoulders. "Much as I enjoy the view," he said with a suggestive smile, "I've no desire to see you hypothermic."

The situation seemed to James faintly ridiculous but he decided it would not be wise to voice this thought. Instead he said, "You were going to explain why you're doing this."

"Yes, of course." Silva settled himself down on the bench, sitting so close to Bond that their legs met. "I used to be in MI6," he said, "a double 'O' agent like yourself. But surely you've figured that out by now, no? It was like one big happy family, with M as the mum, the matriarch. Then one day she sold me to the Chinese and they _hurt_ me for a long, long time."

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that?"

"Not really, no," the brown-eyed man replied, "but it's the truth."

"I _don't_ believe it," James stated. "For all I know this is a messed up game of 'good cop, bad cop'."

Silva laughed. "I am not a 'good cop'," he said. "As for the men who did this... well I have already dealt with the ringleader though I am beginning to question their character as a whole. They were rather rough with Severin."

"You _shot_ Severin."

"Well yes. She betrayed me. But I _never_ hit her."

"And that makes it better somehow?"

"Of course."

"You're insane."

"Quite probably," Silva agreed with a nod. "Get up, I want to show you something."

James found himself being led from the room. Just on the far side of the door was the body of one of the mercenaries, dead from a bullet to the head.

* * *

Bond found himself brought to what appeared to be Silva's bedroom. "Have a seat," the deranged man invited. James settled himself into an armchair, then noticed that Silva appeared to be undressing. "What are you doing?" the agent asked.

"Showing you what they did, what she did." He stripped off the last of his clothes. He was covered in scars. They were the marks left by cuts, puncture wounds, burns and scalds. Wide rings of scar tissue around his wrists and ankles showed where he had been repeatedly bound. Some of the wounds James could not even imagine the causes of. There were surgical scars too, where damage had been repaired and a feeding tube taped in place on the former agent's abdomen.

Without speaking, Silva reached up and took hold of his upper row of teeth. Bond had already noticed that they were fake. He had not realised that the other man's left cheek bone was also a part of the prosthesis until it came away with the teeth and palate, causing his face to sag. "The cyanide capsule did this," he said, indicating his ruined face, words slightly distorted, "and necessitated this." The feeding tube. "Do you believe me now 007?"

James hadn't been able to answer. Silva had slotted his fake jaw back into place and gotten dressed. "Get some rest," he said, waving towards the large, comfortable looking bed. "I promise not to shoot you." He mimed a gun with his hands, slid the two extended fingers between his lips, smiled, then threw his head back as though he had pulled the non-existent trigger. "Not while you're asleep at least," he added.

Silva sat down and started to work at a rather ordinary laptop and James could honestly think of nothing to do other than follow his suggestion. He sank into the bed, satin sheets soft against his bruised skin. The light was dim. The clack-clack-clack of callused fingers dancing over a keyboard was almost like a lullaby.

* * *

When James woke he could tell from the colour of the sky beyond the window that it was shortly after dawn. He sat up and stretched out arms that he was quite sure would be sore for weeks. Silva was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring up at him with a too-wide grin. He showed no signs of having slept. "The bathroom's through there," he said, tilting his head towards a door on the far side of the bed.

Stepping through into the other room Bond found a basic metal basin and toilet along with an old-fashioned porcelain bathtub which looked quite out of place. It had no taps but turning a valve on a pipe protruding from the wall James was pleased to find a stream of warm water pouring into the tub. As the bath filled he relieved himself and washed his hands and face. The mirror above the sink was broken.

* * *

"I take it you are refreshed?" Silva asked with his trademark sardonic grin when Bond emerged some time later. James said nothing but slipped on the jacket the other man had placed on him the night before. Silva was unfazed by the lack of response. "Time for breakfast!" he announced happily.

* * *

They ate breakfast on the roof or rather Bond ate and Silva watched him. It was disconcerting, made more so by the fact that James knew the other man _couldn't _eat, but he refused to show any sign of being ill at ease.

"Do you like the view?" Silva asked.

"This place is dead," Bond replied.

The blond-haired man dipped his fingers into the jug of orange juice and proceeded to lick them clean, a look of rapt pleasure on his face. "We're not," he said at last.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for all the follows and favs and especially for the reviews! There will be one more chapter in this.

**Warnings for this chapter** (there are a few)**:** possible Stockholm syndrome, slash, implied past sexual abuse, one swear word (seriously it _that's_ what bothers you there's something wrong), implied past child abuse, mention of suicide, discussion of torture.

* * *

James had been on the island three days before the strange former agent crawled into the bed beside him. He was more than half asleep at the time but woke instantly at the touch of calloused hands on his skin. He tensed. Silva's arms had wrapped around his abdomen but were making no move to venture lower. He simply held Bond in a tight embrace and said nothing and though he kissed his back a few times, this whole thing spoke more of desperation than lust. James was something to cling onto, like a drowning man clings to a plank of wood to keep himself afloat.

Silva fell asleep almost instantly, still clutching onto the other man. James lay awake. How could he sleep with a psychopathic cyberterrorist using him as a fucking teddy bear? It wasn't long before dawn came. James felt Silva shifting beside him as he woke. After a moment he released his grip and sat up. He was naked again, with the jaw plate out and somehow despite his broad shoulders looked terribly fragile. He stood and slotted the prosthetic back into place, put on his trousers, delivered a syringeful of nutritious mush into his stomach and said nothing.

* * *

It was two more nights before Silva got into the bed again. This time Bond _was _asleep. He woke to soft kisses on his chest, moving lower. He froze but large hands moved to stroke his thighs as though to reassure him. He gasped when the other man took him in his mouth and struggled not to moan as Silva licked and sucked and caressed. The blond-haired man was very good. This was definitely not his first time doing this. James wondered if he should care about the security cameras in the room. He couldn't manage too. After what seemed forever and yet far too short a time he came with a gasp.

He sank back into the soft bed as he drew in a deep satisfied breath. Silva was beside him now, wrapping scarred arms around his chest. He seemed to be preparing to sleep but etiquette was something Bond had been well schooled in. He knew that when someone did you a favour you always paid them back (if only so they would have no leverage against you later.) This in mind, he flipped the cyberterrorist onto his back and holding his wrists with one hand reached the other between his legs. He did _not _expect Silva to start shaking or the heartbreaking noise of animalistic terror that escaped his lips. Instantly James pulled back. The other man scrambled to the far side of the bed and curled himself into a ball against the world.

James knew this would be another night he wouldn't sleep. He'd been lying awake for an hour when the nightmare started, if nightmare was a strong enough word for it. Silva was saying something, the words distorted by sleep and his damaged mouth. He sobbed and then suddenly he was screaming, thrashing on the bed. Acting quickly Bond pushed Silva down into the mattress, trying to minimize the amount of damage he could do to himself or James. Being restrained however only seemed to make him worse. "Wake up!" Bond ordered. "Wake up Silva!" His eyes opened abruptly, wide and startled. After a moment, and seeing that the other man was conscious, James released him. At once he wrapped his arms around Bond and clung to him as though his life depended on it. Though he was not making a sound he was crying. James could feel his breath, rapid and irregular.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Bond asked bluntly after some time had passed and the sky had begun to lighten. Silva pulled away and put his jaw plate in. Bond waited.

"Nothing happened," the blond-haired man said eventually, though he would not look at the MI6 agent.

"Bullshit," James replied.

"I had a bad dream. That is normal, no?"

"And beforehand?"

"You seemed to enjoy that part," Silva said with a smile that seemed more than a little off.

"You didn't," Bond countered. Then his voice softened and he asked, "What did they do to you in China"

"Everything Mr. Bond." He turned finally to face James. "Still," he said with a shark's grin, "I do apologise for my behaviour last night. What do you say we try again? In the cold light of day." He moved to stand in front of the other man then, laid a feather-light touch on his shoulder.

"What is this about?" Bond asked, refusing to let any emotion show in his voice.

"It can't just be that I want you?"

"If that were the case you could have taken me back when I was tied to that chair," James replied easily.

Silva frowned and kissed the blue-eyed man suddenly and violently, fake teeth clashing into real. Bond tasted blood but pushed into the kiss anyway, lips and tongue fighting for dominance. Silva drew back. "I didn't want it _that _way," he said. James kissed him again, impatiently, fingernails digging into shoulders to pull him closer. "We're the same James, don't you see?" Silva murmured against his neck. "We're what she made us. We should be one." James said he was insane, thought in truth that he was right and pulled him down onto the bed.

Everything was fine until they came to the point of the actual sex. Then James felt the blond-haired man become quiet and unresisting. They had been vying for control moments before and, loath as he was to admit it, this _compliance _disturbed Bond. With conscious effort he slowed the frantic pace of his body, kissing the other man's scars as he moved slicked fingers inside him. Even there he felt scar tissue. For a brief moment he felt a surge of anger towards M before quickly he suppressed it. He kissed Silva again and after a second or two the other man returned it, brown eyes wide and never leaving Bond's as the younger man slowly entered him.

* * *

"What's your first name?" James had asked afterwards.

"Raoul," Silva replied, "but it used to be Tiago. I was Tiago Rodriguez, a double 'o' agent for MI6. Tiago Rodriguez was a fool."

"Did you have a family?" James asked the question in the past tense, for it was clear he didn't now.

Silva shook his head. "No. Mummy always said orphans make the best recruits." He smiled that strange pained smile. "It's another thing we have in common," he said. "You're parents died in an accident, am I right?"

"Yes," James said, just a little too fast. "What happened to yours?"

"I never had a father, it was quite the scandal as I understand. My mother - not my real mother of course but the woman who gave birth to me - was from a family of Spanish Catholics. We moved to England when I was very young. She was young too I suppose but I never saw that when I was a child. She was this tall, all powerful figure. I loved her." He frowned. "She didn't love me though. She wasn't happy with how her life had turned out, blamed me for that. The social workers took me away when I was... eight, I think. She killed herself shortly after. Do you think that means she missed me?"

* * *

It was a month since Bond had arrived on the island. He was naked on the bed, half tangled in the sheets, Silva's skin warm against his own. "What are these from?" he asked, fingers brushing the deep rings of scarring that encircled both of the other man's upper arms.

"Do you remember your first day here," the man who had been Tiago Rodriguez asked, "how the men hung you up?"

James nodded. How could he forget?

"There are worse ways of doing that," Silva told him. "One is to tie the hands behind the back, tie wire of thin rope around both arms and then hoist you up from that." He might have been describing the weather for all the emotion in his voice. "It cuts into the skin and muscle of course, hence the scars." He paused, then shook his head as if dismissing a thought.

"Do you know who they were," Bond asked, "the people who tortured you?"

"Yes," Silva said. "I killed them. The man in Shanghai was the last."

"Good," James said. "I'm glad I didn't manage to stop Patrice." He kissed the marks, then all the awful branding-iron scars on his chest. "I never did thank you for cutting me down," he said, pulling the covers out of the way and positioning himself between the other man's thighs.

* * *

MI6 did arrive eventually of course, with helicopters and tactical teams. James supposed he should be glad to be 'rescued'. Mostly he just wondered what would happen now. On the jet back to London he couldn't help but glance from time to time at Silva who sat, shackled hand and foot, and smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

This is the end of the main part of this fanfic (though I am writing an epilogue). I hope people like it.

**Warnings for this chapter:** A cavity search (why did I write this?), sexual innuendo, implied past sexual abuse, mention of past child abuse, mention of mental illness, mentions of torture, mentions of suicide, a little bit of bad language, generally just upsetting

* * *

"I'm sending you for psychological examination," M said. "Untill then you're on suspension. I have to tell you 007, there are _serious _doubts about your loyalties."

"I'm loyal to England," the blue-eyed man said.

"And to MI6?"

James did not reply. "Have you spoken to Rodriguez yet?" he asked.

"No," she replied.

"Did you watch his processing? I know it would have been recorded, procedure and all that."

M frowned. She didn't like where this was going. "I haven't watched the tapes," she said.

"Maybe you should."

M's frown deepened but she located the relevent file on her computer, tilted the screen so that Bond could also see and started the playback.

The image that appeared was of Silva standing in the centre of a featureless room, two agents standing in front of him, four more in the corners of the room, guns drawn and ready to fire. One of the men unlocked the former agent's shackles while he watched and smiled a constant unnerving smile.

"Get undressed," he was instructed when the chains were gone. Still smiling, he stripped away the clothing.

Though her face betrayed nothing, below the table M's knuckles were white as she took in the magnitude of the damage inflicted. His chest and thighs were the most obviously marked - thick lines of shiny pink scar tissue showed where a red-hot iron bar had been pressed into the flesh again and again - but the rest of his body was by no means unscathed.

"Like what you see?" Silva asked on the screen, his expression cocky, the tension in his limbs almost imperceptible. He found a torch being shone in his face

"Open your mouth," the lead agent ordered.

"Why? Do you have something nice for me?"

One of the agents swore. The words "fucking lunatic" were just audible. "We have to do a cavity search," said the man who had been placed in charge, "so open it!" Silva waited just long enough that it seemed he would not comply. Then, as the agent stepped forward, he smiled and opened his mouth. A torch was shone inside. "What the hell is that?" asked the man examining him. The blond-haired man shot him a questioning look full of false innocence. The query contained within was clear: how could he answer the agent with his mouth open? "Oh for the love of... You can close your mouth now." Silva did but he took his time answering, so much so that the agent asked for a second time.

"It's a prosthesis," he said at last. "I lost a lot of jaw and facial bone."

"Take it out so we can check it."

Silva sighed and rolled his eyes but reached up and drew out the jaw plate. The left side of his face sagged horrifically. Sitting in her office a silent gasp escaped M's lips.

One agent looked over the appliance while another examined the inside of Silva's mouth for a second time. Finally they were satisfied that he was not concealing anything there and returned the jawplate. The inspection continued. The last thing that had to be done was a rectal search.

"Honestly, what do you think I'm hiding up there?" the dark-eyed man asked with false calm.

The agent was businesslike but Silva tensed and bit his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Afterwards he was given a new set of clothing to dress in, shackled and led from the room. The footage ended.

M shut down the computer. "Wait outside 007," she instructed. "I'll join you momentarily."

When Bond was gone the grey-haired woman stood and walked calmly to her small private bathroom. She locked the door and moments later threw up everything she had eaten that day.

* * *

James stood in the corridor. M appeared after a short while, as cool and composed as ever. She led the way down, deeper underground to where the high level containment cell was kept.

Silva sat cross-legged on a small stool in the centre of his glass cage wearing a mustard jump-suit. He seemed the picture of calm, untill James realised he was doing a breathing exercise, one he himself had learnt in training, one designed to suppress panic. He opened his eyes when the door slid shut. "Hello Mummy," he said. "Hello James." He had the look of something broken, pieced back together but still jagged and brittle.

"I'm not your mother Tiago."

He laughed. "Of course you are, in the ways that matter at least. Aren't you glad, that you mean so much?"

"Your mother was a manic depressive who put out cigarettes on your back. Forgive me if I'm not flattered by the comparison."

Silva's face twisted into something ugly. "But you've hurt me so much worse than her," he said.

"You agreed to the risks when you were recruited," M said.

He nodded. "Yes," he agreed, "I knew I could be captured but I never expected to be gift-wrapped and delivered to the enemy. Do you know what they did to me, the _hundreds _of ways they made me suffer?" His lips were curled upwards in a rictus grin yet he looked close to breaking down. "They kept me awake for weeks on end, shocked me with electric batons, pushed them into me..."

"Enough!" M cut him off. "I did what was necessary."

"But you left me there." His breath hitched but he still wore that terrible smile. "Why? Why did you leave me in Hell?"

"You had an out," she replied, face a mask that allowed no emotion to be seen. "You should have used it."

He laughed. "Do you mean the cyanide pill Mummy? I took my medicine like a good little boy." He touched his damaged face. "Would you like to know what happened then?"

"You took the cyanide..." The words were little more than a whisper but he heard.

"That's right," Silva said. He let himself slide off the stool, falling to his knees on the hard floor. "At first I thought you'd come," he told M. "I thought I'd be rescued or traded. I didn't understand how completely you'd betrayed me. I thought you'd come. They made me scream and crawl and cry but I kept your secrets. Eventually I realised you weren't coming but I still protected you. I broke the hollow tooth and I bit down on the poison. It _burned _me from the inside out and ate away bone but it didn't kill me. It left me alive and still in that place." He paused, struggling to hold back the tears forming in his eyes. "I couldn't speak," he said. "My throat was little more than blistered half dissolved tissue. I certainly couldn't write, not with the damage done to my hands. So torturing me anymore would just have been a waste of time. I was dragged outside to some wasteland. My captors dug a little pit. It was shallow because it was winter you see and the ground was frozen. They dumped me in the hole and pushed the soil back up over me. A bullet to the brain was apparently too much effort. They didn't care. I'm sure they thought I'd be dead by the morning. I didn't die though. I _craved_ death but life would not release its hold on me. I crawled out of the grave. I made myself walk even though my legs should have given way beneath me and I survived." He looked at M. The tears could no longer be denied. "It was all for you," he said. "Everything was for you."

James glanced from Silva, crying and laughing simultaneously on the floor of his cell, to M. She had paled considerably as her former agent spoke. Watching him she seemed to come to a decision for she walked forward, released the cell door and stepped inside. She sat down on the metal stool and the far larger man wrapped his arms around her legs and cried into the side of her coat. "Why?" he asked brokenly, "Why?"

"I'm sorry," M said.

Silva moaned and hugged her legs tighter. "I forgive you," he choked out. After that whatever strength was left in his body seemed to drain away and he slumped against the older woman. James watched the collapse and didn't know if he should stay or leave. Eventually he climbed up the two small steps into the cell and sat down beside Silva. He drew the crying man against his chest and away from M who had been awkwardly patting his bleached hair.

He didn't say that everything would be okay, it would have been a lie. A dozen or more people were dead and there were too many scars that would never heal. For a short while though there would be warm arms and comfort.


	4. Epilogue: Resurrection

So here's the epilogue. It's just tying up the loose ends of the story. I hope people enjoy it :)

Thanks everyone for all the reviews, favs and follows! I'm writing another Skyfall story (not related to this one) but I'm not sure yet when I'll start posting it.

**Warnings for this chapter: **some light slash

* * *

"You're being sent to a psychiatric facility," M informed the man who had been Tiago Rodriguez. He nodded understanding from within his glass cage. It had been several hours since his breakdown. The crumpled jumpsuit and the redness of his eyes were the only indications of the emotional collapse. His expression was blank, betraying only exhaustion. "It's run by MI6," M continued, "so you can tell the doctors whatever you need to."

Later M told James he would be going aswell. "Not long-term," she clarified, "just for a while."

"Because I failed all the evaluation tests?" Bond asked.

"So you found out about that," she said with no real surprise. "That's part of the reason," she said after a pause.

* * *

The hospital was located on a small island that didn't show up on any maps. It was clean and pleasant and as soon as he set foot in the place James knew he would be bored out of his mind.

There were therapy sessions, wholesome meals and lots of free time. By the second day Bond was seriously considering swimming for it. Raoul, or rather Tiago (for he was using his real name once again), found him eyeing up the jetty and dragged him inside.

"You weren't thinking of leaving, were you Mr. Bond?" he whispers when they are safe inside an empty room.

His breath was hot against James' ear. The agent turned and pressed his lips to the older man's mouth. "Only a little," he answered, when he finally pulled away. "The Channel's freezing this time of year."

Tiago pushed him back into the wall and kissed him again. "You're not allowed to leave James," he said, pausing for breath. "You're not allowed to leave me."

James spun them around. "Has your therapist talked to you about your abandonment issues yet?" he asked as he slipped his hand beneath the waistband of the other's trousers, uncaring that someone could walk in at any time. Still he _was _careful that the blonde-haired man saw what he was doing. He still tended to react badly to unexpected touches.

"Maybe," Rodreiguez replied as his fingertips danced over Bond's arms. "You're still not allowed to leave."

James pushed his hand slowly down further and grasped Tiago's penis as the other man bucked against him in response. "And what makes you think you can give me orders, hmm?" he asked as he started to move his hand in long languid strokes.

"Not me," the former spy said, head back and eyes closed in pleasure, "your doctor." He smiled. "I might have -ah- broken into his office last night and -mm- read his notes on you."

James laughed. "Why am I not surprised?" Rough but nimble fingers were unfastening his belt and as it came undone the dark-eyed man was sliding to his knees before him. "Did you break into your therapist's office too?"

"No. Maybe tonight," came the distracted reply as he tugged down James' trousers. "She doesn't seem the type to keep a lot of notes though."

"How come you got the pretty lady doctor anyway?" Bond asked, a hint of a smile on his face.

"Probably because you would try to seduce her," Tiago answered before taking the other man in his mouth.

"And you -oh- wouldn't?"

He paused to reply. "I much prefer you Mr. Bond."

* * *

When they were leaving the room (incidentally both late for their respective counselling sessions) James turned to look again at Tiago. "I will have to go eventually," he said.

"I know." He frowned. "You're still an asset."

"Yes," James said.

"Will you visit me?"

"Yes."

"If you don't I'll come find you and kidnap you... again," he added after a moment's thought.

Bond smirked. "I wonder what it says about my life that statements like that seem reasonable?" he asked, only mostly joking.

"It says you should retire and move someplace warm with me," came the quick reply.

"A few more years and I might take you up on that."

"If you're still alive," Rodriguez replied, tone suddenly sombre.

"I will be. I told you before; resurrection is my hobbie."

Tiago kissed him suddenly but softly. "That's what this feels like," he said when he pulled away. "When I survived the cyanide, when I crawled out of my grave in China, that felt like dying but being here, being with you feels like resurrection."


End file.
